


Green Means Go

by dramamelon



Series: 500 [4]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: AU friendly, Angst, Brother Feels, Canon Friendly, Humor, Mild Language, Slice of Life, stupid robots, various levels of shippiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-09-20 19:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9509867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramamelon/pseuds/dramamelon
Summary: A collection of shorts—some connected, some not—following Sideswipe and Sunstreaker through some moments of life.(Rating and tags subject to change.)NEW (July 4, 2017):Chapter 5: Prompt 21 - MagicSummary: A snacking adventure, featuring Bob. :DChapter 6: Prompt 24 - MiserySummary: Sunstreaker can't stay.





	1. Prompt 5 - Blessing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunstreaker delivers a heavy blow. Sideswipe copes.

Perhaps life would have been a little easier for them both were they not connected in the manner they were. Family bonds had a way of tying together bots that had absolutely no similarities and would likely have nothing to do with one another otherwise, forcing emotional constraints on all involved that were not easily done away with. So it was that Sideswipe found himself tied to Sunstreaker, the most arrogant yellow aft he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting, but still the most important figure in Sideswipe’s life. Brothers, they used to tell others. Twins, if they really trusted the mech. Lately, though, it was nothing.

It started when they joined up with the Autobots, Sunstreaker quickly attaining rank of note and leadership duties while Sideswipe was left to flounder among the rest of the grunts. Not that Sideswipe expected any sort of favoritism, of course. If he accomplished anything as a soldier, it would be under his own merit, but it cut deeply into his systems, gouging his core, when Sunstreaker pulled him aside before his first training exercise under his brother.

“From this moment on, you’re nothing to me, Sideswipe,” Sunstreaker said, face impassive and field unyielding.

A frown tipped down the corners of Sideswipe’s mouth as he tilted his helm a little in question. “What?”

“You are nothing,” Sunstreaker reiterated, not even clenching his fists in a way that might indicate the words were difficult. “A worthless grunt, unskilled and lacking in even the simplest forms of discipline. You’ll have nothing to do with me outside of whatever training I’m assigned to give you. Am I understood?”

Sideswipe narrowed his optics, staring hard at his brother, his other self, ignoring the crumbling sensation in his spark as he tried to discern the reality of what was happening here. “Sunny, bro—”

“Don’t force my hand, soldier,” Sunstreaker said, breaking him off with a dismissive slice of his fingers through the air between them. “I won’t have you stumbling around under foot and I am quite capable of issuing an official reprimand, if need be.”

More confused than ever, the crumble of his spark accelerating to a nearly painful degree, Sideswipe tried a different tactic, opening the private internal comm that existed between them. :: _Sunny, what’s going on?_ ::

“I’ll see you spend the night in the brig if you do that again.” The set of Sunstreaker’s face had gone hard and unforgiving. Sideswipe physically jumped as a wall was slammed down on the bond, cutting off what little dregs of Sunstreaker’s emotions and thoughts were leaking through before and leaving Sideswipe in utter silence.

“Sun—”

“Get to the training field, now,” Sunstreaker ordered, then turned left Sideswipe behind.

Stunned and bereft, Sideswipe stared after him. His optics stung, but he forced the reaction away. This was an opportunity, a chance to be himself, unhindered by the words brother and twin, right? It was good thing. A chance to prove he was every bit as worthwhile as Sunstreaker, every bit as talented and strong and smart—something not even Sunstreaker believed, apparently.

This dismissal of who they were? This was a blessing. Stuffing down the growing, empty pangs of hurt that would eat at him until he really was nothing, Sideswipe straightened his frame to stand tall. If the universe wanted him to prove himself, alone, he was going to come out the other end of the challenge more golden than Sunstreaker.


	2. Prompt 6 - Unbearable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunstreaker's thread is about to snap.

So many mistakes. So many that Sunstreaker knew he’d never be able to pinpoint which of them had come first, which had shifted things from merely a collection of mistakes to an unstoppable landslide that buried him deep into the crust of the planet for all the weight on top of him. And, by his own actions, he was alone in his despair. Seeking to protect them both from their familial bond being used against them, Sunstreaker had sent Sideswipe away so very long ago, had made certain his brother despised him, had cut him off through the spark connection even fully separated twins like themselves shared.

And now? Now Sunstreaker suffered for it. Sideswipe wouldn’t respond even if the bond were thrown wide open and Sunstreaker cried out for help. Not after all the pain that had been forced upon him by Sunstreaker’s maneuverings, now proven so ultimately ill-advised. He knew without doubt that he never would have come to the point of approaching the scum that was Starscream for anything resembling help had he not blocked himself off from that once unquestioning loyalty and love.

He stood in the shadows of the trees, taking smallest comfort in the darkness they offered. If he stayed hidden, he could at least pretend he wasn’t about to turn on everything he’d once held sacred. Not about to make the Cybertronian equivalent of a deal with the devil. Not about to do something that would make Sideswipe hate him even more.

That last was perhaps the most unbearable thought of all, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from acting on the burning need for revenge that filled him. So, when Starscream spoke, Sunstreaker answered.


	3. Prompt 11 - Desperate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins have a little meeting with Prowl.

“I’m serious, Prowl,” Sideswipe said, leaning forward over the SIC’s desk, palms planted on the far edge. He hadn't offered either of the twins a seat, preferring the advantage it gave him, leaving Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both shuffling uneasily on their feet. Of course, Sunstreaker wasn’t quite so fidgety as his brother, Sideswipe’s drumming fingers almost proving a distraction—almost—as the red mech pleaded their case. “It wasn’t us. Not this time! I’ve got the evidence to prove it, too, if you’d just give me a chance to show you.”

“Well, this ought to be good,” Prowl replied, tilting back his seat a bit and folding his hands low across his belly. He gave Sideswipe a small nod. “Please, the floor is yours.”

No doubt from the sudden, uneasy confusion that slid across Sideswipe’s face and the quick look he shared with an equally bemused Sunstreaker, neither twin had expected that. Perhaps, Prowl realized, he didn’t normally give them room to speak their case, not fully. While the twins were exceedingly obnoxious at their worst, this reaction troubled Prowl. He made a private note to do better. Even for the likes of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker in bad behavior overdrive.

“Um, well,” Sideswipe stammered, standing with his usual lazy slump again and trading more confused looks with Sunstreaker. Prowl tagged that new note with a higher priority flag. “I _know_ it looks like something we would do—” Sideswipe looked like he wanted to wring his hands together to placate his flood of nervous charge, but pride kept him from it, “—but, Prowl, _sir_ , you know it wouldn’t have ended with Blue and Bee in the medibay. Pit, it wouldn’t have ended with Huffer or Cliffjumper in the medibay if _they’d_ been the target, instead. We don’t do that to our own teammates.”

Prowl conceded that point. As simple as it would be to lay the blame on them due to previous infractions, it simply didn’t sit right. He met Sideswipe’s optics for a lingering moment, then included Sunstreaker with another penetrating gaze. Shifting his attention back to Sideswipe, the spokesman of the pair, Prowl steepled his forefingers in his lap, idly tapping them together. “I understand that, Sideswipe. Better than you realize. That is not, however, evidence enough to keep you out of the brig in this instance. Autobots have been put in Ratchet’s care due to this particular round of fun and games.”

“It _wasn’t_ us,” Sideswipe grit out through clenched dentae, hands curling into hard fists. Beside him, Sunstreaker clamped down hard on his field, plating drawn in close against his frame. They were getting scared.

“Neither one of you can be accounted for during the time of the event, Sideswipe,” Prowl said, setting his sensor panels into a position of curiosity and weaving his fingers together now. “Nor is there any record of either of you in the hours leading up to it once your shifts ended. How can you account for this time?”

Silence fell as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker traded looks and debated how to respond over their twin bond. When they stretched out the time, reaching ridiculous lengths as they made minute gestures with their hands and expressions of argument passed over their faces, Prowl narrowed his optics and frowned.

“A more timely response would be in the best interest of all involved,” he nudged them, hoping he didn’t sound too annoyed.

Two pairs of blue optics turned his direction, Sunstreaker displeased at the interruption and Sideswipe looking almost as if he’d forgotten Prowl was even there. “Sorry, sorry!” Sideswipe said. “You see, it’s like this—”

“Don’t do it, you moron.” Obviously, Sunstreaker suspected something. Prowl offered him a serene look of question, earning a disgusted huff and turn of the head.

“It’s like this,” Sideswipe spilled when Prowl gazed on him again, shoulders slumping in defeat. “We weren’t there because we were setting up that slime bomb in the—” he paused to sigh, “in the command washracks that hit Optimus. And Ironhide.”

Prowl arched an orbital ridge, urging him to continue.

“And Jazz, and Ratchet, and you, and… yeah. Pretty much everybody.” Sideswipe refused to meet his optics now, kicking at the floor with the toe of one foot. He was probably leaving scuff marks, Prowl thought with a small sigh of his own. Then, a bit of the normal Sideswipe spunk showed itself again. “Do you guys have like shower parties or something? Because that’s kinda weird, everyone being there at the same time.”

As Sunstreaker caught his face in his palm, Prowl punched the button for the comm unit set on this desk. “Ratchet here,” spoke the familiar cranky medic from the other end. “This better not include the word injury or anything related to it.”

“Ratchet, you can let Bluestreak and Bumblebee out of the medibay now,” Prowl said. A small smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth as he met Sideswipe’s shocked gaze. “And, by the way, you owe me fifty shanix. Sideswipe just sang like a songbird.”

“Dammit,” Ratchet cursed, the sound of Bluestreak and Bumblebee laughing filling the background. “You two, shut up and get out of here! Prowl, you send _those_ two my way when you’re done with them.”

The comm cut out before Prowl could reply, but that didn’t matter. The point had been made. He sat a little straighter and addressed the twins once they’d both returned their attention to him. “Your confession is appreciated, Sideswipe. Now, let’s discuss punishment, shall we?”

Sideswipe yelped as Sunstreaker walloped him on the shoulder.


	4. Prompt 15 - Apoplexy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another "discussion" with Prowl goes very wrong. Ratchet is not pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As from Merriam-Webster.com:
> 
>  **Apoplexy:**  
>  1 _medical_  
>  a: _dated_ : stroke  
>  b : gross hemorrhage into a cavity or into the substance of an organ 
> 
> 2 : a state of intense and almost uncontrollable anger

Nobody was quite sure how to explain it when Ratchet asked for the details. One moment, Prowl had been ranting at the twins in full-blown lecture mode, the next, he’d twitched, a small billow of smoke puffed from his audials, and then he’d crashed in a sparking heap on the floor.

Ratchet scrunched his face in thought while directing First Aid and Hoist to get the downed SIC to the medibay. They were plenty well-trained enough to get Prowl at least ready for Ratchet to give him a better look when he got there. It wasn’t as if Prowl was on the verge of deactivation. Ratchet turned back to the crowd when the scene was cleared, focusing on the sizable group of suspects. “Nobody’s answering me,” he prompted. “Let me ask again. If I don’t get answers this time, reformats _will_ be happening. So, who’d like to tell me exactly what the frag happened?”

It was a brave spark that shoved Sideswipe and Sunstreaker to the front of the pack. While Sunstreaker scowled and shook a threatening fist at the guilty party—an unintimidated looking Smokescreen—Sideswipe looked shifty and seemed unable to find Ratchet’s answer. “Uh…. Well, I, uh…. You know?”

Ratchet scowled at the red frontliner. “No, I don’t know,” he replied, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he stared Sideswipe down. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be asking, would I? Now spit it out.”

It never ceased to amaze the crowd how easily Ratchet cowed the twins. Sideswipe seemed to shrink a few feet in height at the reprimand, Sunstreaker suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I, uh,” Sideswipe started again, refusing to meet Ratchet’s gaze, “I’ve never seen Prowl so angry. He was downright pissed the fuck off at us. And we didn’t do anything this time, I swear.”

“The time you don’t say that is the time I might believe you,” Ratchet shot back. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge, feeling a processor ache building. It happened far too often when these particular shades of red and yellow were involved.

“How about if we said we didn’t mean to?” Sunstreaker asked, stepping up for once. He rarely bothered, seeming to have some sort of preference for letting his brother wheel and deal the outcome of their fate off the battlefield. His stance was closed up tight and he edged closer to Sideswipe without it appearing to be so if one wasn’t actually aware of it happening. “Honest mistakes do happen, even for mechs like me and the idiot.”

“Hey!” Of course, Sideswipe protested. He’d done it for so long at this point that it was purely reflexive in nature. Unless he made a particularly big fuss, it usually went unnoted.

“And just what was this ‘honest mistake,’ then?” Ratchet wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to know the answer now, truthfully.

“Can we, maybe, take it somewhere private, first?” Judging from the look on Sideswipe’s face—crinkled and nervous around the optics, mouth small as if afraid to open—he was worried.

“Oh, this is going to be good,” Ratchet muttered, using up what remained of his sarcasm quota for the year in those seven words.


	5. Prompt 21 - Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A snacking adventure, featuring Bob. :D

Bob knew there was something going on when his master and his master’s clutchmate hid the box from him in the closet. They never hid _anything_ from him, not unless it was snacks they tried to dole out to him only a few at a time. That never worked, though, because Bob was smart. Bob knew the ways of doors. Snacks could not be hidden from Bob.

And so Bob waited until master and his clutchmate left the habsuite again, grumbling words he didn’t understand between them. He waited a few moments more, listening for the locking mechanism to engage—they didn’t like Bob getting outside on his own. He wasn’t sure why. With the door locked behind his master and his clutchmate, though, Bob skittered across the berthroom floor and out into the main room of the large hab.

There was a closet near the front door where they stashed a bunch of weird things. Bob couldn't figure out what any of it was for, but he’d certainly gotten in trouble for digging around through it. Both times! And the time after. He’d been sneakier after that, though.

Bob didn’t expect the snacks were hidden in there this time, but it never hurt to check, right? He paused outside the closet door and sniffed around the edges, his nasal receptors sifting through the collected data as he sought the tiniest whiff of Bob Snacks—every snack was a Bob Snack. His whole body huffed and deflated when not even the very smallest of snack scent could be found from behind the door.

The box was _not_ snacks.

It wasn’t the end of the world, though, because Bob knew snacks often ended up behind other doors in the strange room at the back of the habsuite. The room where his master would spend orns staring at a rectangle of sheet metal before using a tiny brush to put smelly colors on it. Bob had once tried to taste the smelly colors, but a harsh reprimand from his master put a stop to it. After the third time.

Aside from the smelly colors, though, Bob knew for a fact that snacks were hidden in the small closets and drawers in that room. He’d watched with careful optics as good nibbles found their way behind those doors, vanished from his sight.

He shuffled into the room and slowly made his way around the perimeter, sniffing diligently at every door and drawer as he went. Again, though, he was disappointed. Either there were no snacks or they’d gotten better at hiding them. Bob would be letting his master and his master’s clutchmate know how he felt about it if it were the former of those two options. Fortunately, there was still the food room, where his master and his master’s clutchmate kept their dispenser unit and special preparation stuffs.

If Bob didn’t find snacks there, a couple of mechs were going to hear _all_ about it.

The food room was the cleanest room in the habsuite. Not even his master’s strange room or the washracks were this spotless. It didn’t take long for his nasal receptors to hone in on the scent of Bob Snacks because of it, either. He wasn’t surprised to discover they were stuffed far above the floor behind a small and hard to reach door. His master and his master’s clutchmate had long since learned their lesson about putting Bob Snacks in the bottom doors, but they’d never put them all the way up there before.

Bob surveyed the small doors and the counters and everything else in the food room. There was always a way, no matter how difficult. And with snacks as the prize waiting for him? Bob would succeed because there was no other option.

First, he needed to get on top of the counters.

* * *

“No, Sides,” Sunstreaker griped as he stepped inside the double sized hab he shared with his brother. He brushed a bit of Earth dust away from his forearm as he headed toward the kitchen. “I don’t care what they were offer—,” he stopped dead in his tracks as he took in the scene that awaited them, “—ing. Bob, what the _frag_?”

“What did the bug do now?” Sideswipe asked, sidling up behind him to peer over his shoulder. He could feel when curiosity shifted gears into stunned humor. “Oh, fragging Primus,” Sideswipe said, a strangled chortle underlining the words. “How did he—?”

Sunstreaker scowled, both at his annoying brother and his naughty bug. Shoving an elbow into Sideswipe’s gut as the mech snickered some more, Sunstreaker closed in on Bob. The insecticon chirred happily in the middle of the floor as he worked his way diligently through a formerly brand new box of snacks. “Bob, I swear to Primus, you’re going to make yourself sick,” he said, reaching down to snag the box away from him. When Sideswipe’s laughter increased in volume behind him, Sunstreaker tossed him a glare over one shoulder. “And I’m going to lock you in the idiot’s berthroom when it all comes back up.”

“Oh, slag, Sunny,” Sideswipe said, likely not hearing him, wiping at the cleanser dripping from his optics and almost gasping to get enough air into his systems. He was watching something on the small security monitor embedded in the wall. “You have to see this! Your bug is fragging magic, seriously.”

Frowning, Sunstreaker took the box and what little remained in it, then headed over to see what his brother was watching. Sideswipe obligingly rewound the footage, cackling all over again as the recording showed Bob bumbling his way onto the counters. Even more impressive was the acrobatics the bug performed getting to the small set of cupboards that Sunstreaker had, wrongly, assumed completely beyond Bob’s reach. “No,” Sunstreaker said, tossing a look at his bug, almost strangely proud of him, “not magic. He’s just too slagging smart.”

Sideswipe grinned. “Good thing we got the dampening box on that rustcake for the party tonight. Imagine the mess if he’d caught a whiff, then crawled up in the hall closet and gotten that!”

Behind them, Bob continued snarfling up all the crumbs he could find.


	6. Prompt 24 - Misery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunstreaker can't stay.

It wasn’t right, seeing Sideswipe so still. Sunstreaker never expected to ever be on this side of the equation. He’d done everything he could to keep his brother safe—or saf _er_ , he supposed. Sideswipe shouldn’t be encapsulated in a CR chamber in Autobot City, his spark deteriorating just a little more with every passing moment. They weren’t supposed to have Decepticons shooting at them, anymore. The war was over. Sideswipe wasn’t supposed to be dying.

But he was. Skyfire had quietly pulled him aside and informed him of it, like the medic he wasn’t. As Sideswipe’s brother, he’d actually been given the information first, not that Sunstreaker felt even remotely privileged in light of that. Honestly, if anyone deserved to know first, it was Arcee. She’d developed a strange link with Sideswipe that dared not call itself friendship. Yet. He, on the other hand, still sat outside the range of Sideswipe’s kinder regard, despite them both making small gestures toward reconciliation. But, no, protocol came to him as Sideswipe’s closest kin—his brother, his _twin_ —and forced him to hear the words that meant the end of everything.

Not even Bob afforded him the depth of comfort he needed in the aftermath of that short exchange. No one could really understand, not even bots that had siblings of some sort. None of them had what he shared… _had_ shared with Sideswipe. He tried not to be bitter that Ratchet was off gallivanting who knew where instead of being there on Earth to work his magic.

He pulled away from it all, visiting Sideswipe less and less often, consciously changing the way he spoke of his brother to ease the coming pain of their inevitable final separation. Everyone looked at him funny, of course, but only Arcee actually reacted to it. He knew she would. Whether she admitted to it or not, Arcess would never leave Sideswipe before there was no more reason to stay.

And so, when the call for help arose on Cybertron, Sunstreaker took his best chance to simply leave the situation, cutting himself off entirely. He couldn’t even rightly say whether he’d ever go back. It wouldn’t be that difficult to have Bob brought to him rather than returning to pick him up—Thundercracker, the big goof, would happily bring him the dumb bug if he asked.

It was better this way.


End file.
